For those okay with being given very little to actually do, apart from one actual puzzle and a few token situations, and just being relegated to soaking up the atmosphere, this game will deliver a good time, even if it is only for a few hours.

It would be easy to dismiss it merely as a novelty, as other peripheral-based games certainly have been in the past. But that would be doing a disservice to the ingenuity with which the designers have found a way to get players to try out a workout routine and, even more impressively, stick to it.

While it isn’t a flawless experience and absolutely refuses to hold the player’s hand, it does manage to set itself apart by virtue of its unrelenting difficulty, all while telling a story that comes closer to Lovecraftian fiction than many of its contemporaries.

While the game’s structure feels immediately familiar, A Knight’s Quest does manage to set itself noticeably apart in several key areas, usually in a favorable way, though not without some flubs that are of major consequence.

With a time-traveling story, turn-based combat system, and cast of characters that could have been lifted from such classics as Chrono Trigger — complete with robotic party member — it’s a shame that it is ultimately let down by an unengaging narrative, extremely tedious gameplay loop, and a combination of a lack of challenge and crushingly high encounter rate.